before his methods could be applied. No one knows better than he how long it would take to build the Panama Canal if the diggers were treated like United States soldiers. Let us suppose that a gang of American workingmen enlisted for Canal work were taken to Chickamauga Park for six weeks' "seasoning" and raced up and down Snodgrass Hill in the broiling sun; that their working hours on reaching the Isthmus were from 5:30 A. M. to 9:30 P. M. Suppose, also, that they were fed, clothed, and sheltered like the army, and kept under the same "discipline" that restrains the liberties of the soldier. How many of them would remain in service a month, even at much higher wages?

THE SOLDIER'S RECREATIONS

It may be that the commonplace subject of the army ration needs the Department's attention. I am not qualified to speak of the bill-of-fare at the army post, but I know that the quality and quantity of the food often served in camp and field left us with little courage to take up the soldier's burden. Before we went in, the papers showed us by diagrams how much of this, that, and the other we would have every day. But only the commissary department can tell where it all went. The army had inspectors prowling around by night to entrap careless sentries; general officers rode frequently through our "streets" on inspecting tours; but if it was ever any officer's business to see that we received the ration due us, and that it was properly served, he must have gone to sleep on his post. Eating, drinking, and "shooting craps"-these are the three amusements of the soldier-and the greatest of these is eating.

This is where the Canteen Question also bobs up. What is the army canteen, anyway? To the civilian, it is a canvas-covered flask filled with water, presumably. To the Prohibition specialist, the canteen is a gilded gateway leading the tender, unsuspecting soldier down an inclined plane into debauchery. To the soldier himself, it is a life-saving device, a branch of the commissary where he can buy a social glass of beer and forget that he is a slave. Since I belonged to a regiment without a canteen, and since-as a matter of individual choice-I did not drink while in the service, a word on the canteen question will not be considered a personal grievance.

We were never in a camp where the soldier

with a thirst did not find a way to gratify it. At Chickamauga, the nickels of our regiment went into the fund of the canteen across the road, and that regiment used the profits to buy good things to eat. In other places, the "bootlegger" had his reservoir in place before our tents were ditched. At Chickamauga, few men came in drunk; most of them were satisfied with beer. When no canteen was available, the men who went out of camp brought whiskey back, and the guard had real work to do.

Soldiers do not get drunk at the canteens, but at the saloons outside-and the soldier is no tender, unsophisticated youth, either. The army canteen is a regimental institution, subject to regulation. If Private Toper exceeds the speed limit when the thirst is upon him, and thereby becomes unfit for duty, a word from his captain to the man behind the faucet shuts off Toper's supply. But the "bootlegger" and the saloonkeeper outside can snap their fingers at even the Secretary of War.

The command "Thou shalt not drink!" is visited upon men in jails, in asylums, in penitentiaries, and in the army. The first three classes obey, because they can't get out; the soldier disobeys and gets ingloriously drunk because he can't tell when he will get into town again. into town again. The regiment without a canteen drinks whiskey; the regiment with a canteen drinks beer. And let us hope that there are not many men in the United States army whose physical and spiritual ruin can be laid at the gates of Milwaukee!

Be it clearly understood that this is not the hard-luck tale of a man with a grievance. I left the service by reason of the expiration of my enlistment, and I offered for reënlistment, both in the army and in the navy, but was rejected on the ground of defective vision. The army has many attractions for me to-day, and there is to me no music so insistently thrilling as that blown through a bugle. But I know how I should be made to feel again within six hours if I should put on the uniform again. And I think I know how the men feel that are wearing it to-day.

SERVICE IS NOT ALWAYS SERVITUDE

I know that there are times when the yoke does not gall, times even when the service seems sublime. I recall one glorious day when a great throng gathered in front of an

ancient fortress. As the hands of the cathedral clock approached the hour of noon, a hush came over the crowd and all eyes were fixed upon the flag flying over the palace. It was a flag of yellow and red, and the sun had found it there every morning for centuries. The hour struck-the flag quivered for a moment, fell limp, and slid down the halyards. A moment more and another flag went swiftly up, the sea-breeze caught it and straightened out its folds-it was of red and white and blue. A trumpet sang a note of triumph, hats came off, and a band played "The Star Spangled Banner." There were shouts, and there were tears. But massed in front of the fortress were the men who had put the flag there silent men, in soiled khaki and faded blue shirts. Their eyes were on the bunting-and oh, how good it was to see it there! And how very good in that hour to be a United States soldier! Without any exaggeration, there was

scarcely a man of them who would not have lain him down in the square and died rather than let anybody haul it down.

But, when the command "Attention!" called him back to the stern realities, there was scarcely a man of them that did not in his heart curse the servitude to which he was bound. And the pity of it was that every man had more or less justification for his feeling that army life was in reality what the soldier calls it "a dog's life.”

When the war drums roll once more and the war poets begin to write, Mr. Secretary and the General Staff, you may call for us again. Bid your trumpeter stand upon the Capitol's steps and blow the "Assembly" clear and strong. We have given you reason to believe that he need sound it but once for us. But, in the meantime, we salute you most respectfully and beg leave to wiggle our fingers at the recruiting billboards.

L

ONG before Rome's founding, while the Romans-to-be were still fighting their way across prehistoric Europe, a custom existed among them of choosing those that were keenest of eye and ear, and setting them to watch the flight and note the cries of the birds, that their knowledge might serve the host when it pushed on into unknown regions. During the days of encampment, "bird-crier" and "bird-spier" sit apart and scan the sky, learning the road that lies before them. Through the past their predecessors have studied the same book; the resulting lore has been handed on to them, and they have made it their own and added to it. By its aid they now peer into the instant future and say: "Yonder lies our course; there is the pass across the range that the birds love best, that dips lowest and leads where food and water are most abundant. Thither we lead you, unless further commerce with the skies shall tell us another tale."

to take thus the gathered wisdom of the past and add to it and by its light lead the people on into the future. And I used to think that it was identical with the task of the scholar of to-day-that we of the colleges were a sort of modern "bird-crier" and "bird-spier," guiding our folk. Now, however, I know that it should be so, but is not. These pages are the story of my illusion and its lifting, and the lessons that I draw from the experience. They are the autobiography of a conviction.

STUDENT DAYS IN FRESHWATER COLLEGE

things afterwards. But it was the East, and books came first, and study, and faithful acceptance of tradition. So I stayed at home and read about the world, while it, just the other side of the window-pane, hummed, unheeded by me. I read my father's books (good ones), and the town library's (bad), and read myself incidentally into college.

There I successfully resisted all the broaden ing influences that offered themselves. They were not many. The college stood, as it was fond of reminding us, in loco parentis. That meant that it had a rod in pickle for us, if we drank beer or cut recitations often or stayed away from church or chapel. It did not mean that it held itself responsible for our intellectual growth. In a word, our little college was really a university. A university is not, as some have said, simply a college with a very big endowment. It is a college that takes green youths and maidens, bewildered and bumptious, and says to them: "Here are opportunities; prove in examination week that you have risen to the height of them; meanwhile don't bother us." That is, it is a college neglecting its first, greatest duty, guidance. We were neglected. I have much to thank that little New England college for. The hills that lay about it were very beautiful. The sound of church bells from them was mellow. The apples and grapes were good and accessible, and nuts were abundant in the fall, and the arbutus in the spring. The library had alcoves from which one's eyes traveled over miles and miles of splendid country. Some of the professors were very interesting. And some of them were very noble men, who, as individuals, guided and befriended us in every possible way. The president, too, was a friend, as well as a saint and a scholar. But the helping hand was extended only because this or that individual was kindly and wise and naturally helped all who were about him, and not at all because the institution held itself responsible for the best possible use of those four all-important years of our lives. That is, little Freshwater College was a typical institution of learning.

Do I seem to be speaking harshly of my alma mater? But I am criticizing not her but the whole college world. She was quite as excellent as her sisters. No one will persuade her sons that she was not better. They all love her, and flock back to her when she bids

them, and are never weary of honoring her. I sing her praises at other times, but now it is not to my purpose.

I touched elbows at Freshwater with lads from all over the East. But elbows only, not minds. Why was I not set to thinking about the opportunity that was there for getting a hundred differing points of view concerning every conceivable subject that young men care for? It couldn't be done, you say? But it is done. Have you ever walked behind two English boys who were striding along The High at Oxford, getting their gait for a tenmile walk of an afternoon, and heard them deep in "providence, foreknowledge, will and fate," home rule, death duties, the navy, or the Boers? How does that come about? I don't know, but it does. Oxford leads very many of her undergraduates to make of her a great school of incessant debate. Read English biographies, and you discover that many of England's keenest intellects pass from the university to life under full head. Perhaps the tutor's study and the quarter hours that the student spends there explain how they came to make such steam. It certainly is the result of judicious firing, somewhere.

And then the matter of election. I chose this-that-and-the-other thing, but, with the characteristic conservatism of youth, tended always toward taking more of that which I had already had. Why did not some one of those elders open my eyes to the fact that the web of the world is too large a thing for him to catch the pattern who follows but a thread or two?

the

I left college, then, guiltless of true knowledge -no worse off than most others, then or now, but no better off, and therefore badly off. And yet not so badly off, for I was planning to teach. "Teaching" is doing to others what college has done to you. Schools (like colleges) do not exist to train for life. The primary school exists for the purpose of preparing boys and girls for secondary instruction; secondary, to prepare for college. Many drop out along the way and enter mere life. But there is always a remnant that goes on to college and "maintains the standard." So it is plain that whoever knows the college ways is prepared to teach. I did it very well. The committee invited me to continue. But it was time for me to get more knowledge, that is, more teaching material, and I resigned. I wish, now, that I might go back and do that

other year. It is too late to offer requital to those who were under me, but I might make their children some amends for my sin to their fathers. They were blind, and entrusted themselves to me; and I was well-nigh blind. So is Professor So-and-So, who has just come from Such-and-Such University to teach in your schools.

THE RECALL TO LIFE

I went to Leipsic next. There my emancipation began. Philology was my subject. Philology is something of which the world needs but little, and that little the Germans provide. Still, regular soothing labor, which demands but industry and a bit of knack to be crowned. with results that win courteous praise from your associates, praise which you take for the world's approval, has an opiate charm. It lured me. A recondite subject for the dissertation, full lecture-book, admittance to the desired seminar, were soon mine. For several months I lived the life philological, in all its richness and its fullness. And thena south wind blew, just a plain, literal south wind, and I fell; that is, I rose, on my dead self, to a broader outlook. I was crossing the Augustusplatz, hurrying to a lecture on Horace, when the first warm wind of spring whispered to me an appeal from Horace dead to Horace living. Should I spend two hours reading Horace a line and a half-or go and do what Horace did and praised? I packed a bag, caught the afternoon train, landed that evening in Jena, and for a week roamed up and down Thuringian roads and trails, consorting with the birds and flowers, and with the farming folk in the taverns evenings. I can't catch the odor of violets to this day without seeing instantly those that were blossoming in Thuringia then. That week set me free. Philology is the love of the letter of great literature. I had discovered, dimly, during those spring days, that I had it in me to love the spirit, and comprehend it.

I returned to Leipsic rebellious; I cut lectures, cut the seminar, dropped the dissertation. I went to the opera instead, read, wandered about and made acquaintances everywhere; in brief, became, academically, a lost soul. I felt lost, but persisted. Eventually I saw clearly how it was, that I was merely escaping from books to the life that books spring from; that I was doing the only thing that could fit me for teaching the humanities

learning a little about human beings and becoming a more normal one myself.

For two long, delightful years I followed nature, the best guide. And then I came home and sought a position, though with many fears, for I had not brought back the precious Ph. D., the one thing that is accepted everywhere as proof of fitness for the locum parentis. It did not matter, though; the handicap was not for long. Doctors soon so overspread the land that everyone connected with a college was given the title as a matter of course. So, having once gained an instructorship, I was Doctor thereafter by brevet, and all those evenings at the opera and days of exploration were justified.

A PROFESSORSHIP

My first employment was at a great free institution, which had been founded not long before on a noble idea. Opportunity was written over its portals. I soon found that the opportunity was for the student alone, and for the favored few among the teachers. I was given drudgery to do, and given a cast-iron method for it, too. This would have been well enough if it had been 'prentice work, merely my breaking-in. But it was a position, in which I might grow gray, in the like of which others have grown gray. I compared my chances with those of the young instructors whom I had known in Germany, youths who, as soon as they were given the right to teach, were free to compete on even terms with the oldest and ripest of their colleagues for every academic honor and reward; and my second lesson was learned that our colleges not only neglect "the veritas that lurks beneath the letter's unprolific sheath," but also deny men a fair chance. I saw that the universities of monarchical Germany were, in constitution, essentially democratic, while democratic America's were monarchical-an autocratic head, a favored group of important professors (often organized as a limited senate or board or council), and a large body of associates and assistants, some few of whom will struggle up into the estate above them, while the most are forever barred from what they might have won if there had been fair competition.

I was lucky enough to struggle up. I had a chance to go elsewhere, bettering my salary and being advanced to the peerage, too. Things began to have a different look. It was pleasant to have now the molding of a depart

ment in my own hands; to be responsible only to the president and to have the fortunes of "my men" (as I have heard assistants and associates called) dependent on my fostering. I enjoyed my paternalistic rule-and it was. enlightened and kindly. Most paternalism is. It can always think highly of itself and "point with pride.

If I had remained in this soft berth until middle life, I should have forgotten little by little the lesson that those first college years taught me, as many among my friends have forgotten. I should have learned to ascribe to my qualities and scholarship the preeminence I enjoyed, rather than to my luck in arriving first. For paternalism—the willingness to be a father to others and to arrange their fates for them better than they could do it for themselves, and receive therefor their gratitude is something very deep-seated. Only in the business world does it fail to flourish. There it has every other form of selfishness arrayed against it, in a fair field. It is the wholesome condition that prevailed once in Kilkenny. Kill competition, though, by putting life's best prizes beyond the winning, granting them to favored mortals in advance, and you necessitate at once this hateful, cankering, unendurable relation. Why have so many college presidents failed to see that?

CONTACT WITH THE WORLD'S WORKERS

My own enlightenment, half gained and then half lost again, was finally completed by a flight into the world. I became for a time a doer, in a small way, and, while working with others who were doing, found how academic life appeared to them. Only a few of them had any real knowledge of us, but those few condemned. The feeling of the majority was a semi-respectful contempt. Neither judgment influenced me directly, but both led me to ask if we were not even more completely out of joint with the time than I had thought. If the average American still sent his son to us, because a respect for learning was bred in his bone, but did it with a manifest uneasiness, doubting the value of fully one-half the things we taught and the good sense of the majority of the teachers, must one not conclude either that America is unable to appreciate its colleges, or that these colleges are lagging behind the country's needs? The former explanation I had heretofore heard; the latter I was more or less ripe for, and it was forced upon me now.

I mingled for ten years, in city and town, from ocean to ocean, with the quiet strong men who were making America. My errand took me to each locality half a dozen times or more and made me the guest nearly always of some lawyer, banker, schoolman, manufacturer, politician. Often the acquaintance ripened into frankness and intimacy. And always I took advantage of such opportunity to find what my host wanted of the colleges; and also, a different matter, what he needed from them. The consequence was a disheartening conviction, growing stronger and ever stronger, that we were not rendering service. These men were living, fast and hard. The world's life, sweeping on in a great wave, had come at last to them: the acquisition and the impetus of all the past were theirs, arming them with might, thrilling them, compelling them. The thing we might have done for them, in their youth, was to make them understand that past and this present, so far as mortals may without experience. The thing we had done for such of them as had been entrusted to us was, in some cases, to teach them a little technique; in others, to teach them little things that they could teach, but nothing that would prepare them for the tremendous game in which they were to take a hand-save, possibly, in one instance out of ten, a little good method and a little accuracy. It was appalling to think what should be done, and might be, and what was. Year after year I turned it over, asking myself if I was mistaken, if I could be right and so many wrong. Year after year the conviction grew that the men of the colleges, who had assumed the most high and difficult task of gathering up the experience of the generations gone and transmitting it clarified to the generation to be, were making of their great calling a mere pleasant bread-and-butter profession.

Well, after a time I went back to college. What was my course there to be? I had come to "forty-year." It is then that a man bids good-by to youth and settles down to the hard, steady, final pull. It is then that he formulates his philosophy, too, the philosophy that has gradually been getting itself together and will hearten him and keep him staunch on that long homestretch. I found that I was to go down the road, so far as I could see, a little out of step. And my out-of-step philosophy was to be this-the natural outcome of the experiences that I have been detailing:

Colleges are foct for gathering up the light